Wednesday, July 25, 2012

The Dark Knight Rises Review

“All that's necessary for the
forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.” -Edmund Burke

The Dark Knight Rises is a very good comic book movie, a
rousing action film, and a satisfying conclusion to Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. It is a big film about big issues: good and evil, death and life, deception and honesty. It
has a lot to say about how our motivations can be a
source of power for good or it can be the source of our ultimate undoing. Regarding the Burke quote above, The Dark Knight Rises is not a meditation on
whether good men will stand up against evil (we take that as understood after the first two movies),
but a meditation on what constitutes the kind of ‘good’ man we need to stand
up, or to use the vocabulary of the film, rise. When the film focuses on these themes, it really delivers.

With The Dark Knight Rises,
Christopher Nolan has made an even bigger film than The Dark Knight; giving himself a larger story and a larger cast to
fill it out. Despite delivering a film that is quite good, the film feels a bit
thin to me or as Bilbo from Fellowship of
the Ring might say, “Sort of stretched, like…butter scraped over too much
bread.” What has suffered the most from
the expanded scope is the story. The story is bigger, but it also staggers
and contains a bit more holes than usual. The cast is larger, but feature a
couple of characters that need more fleshing out. These issues affected my visceral
experience of the film, creating many moments
where I found myself unengaged and pondering just where the film was going (this isn’t
the jet engine narrative of The Dark
Knight). The action sequences are decent (not as bad as Batman Begins), but they are less
meaningful to the narrative this time out, and some even feel a bit superfluous
(the stock market raid and the police chase that follows feels a bit unnecessary
in the grand scheme of things). There isn’t a
single well-mounted action beat that ties dramatically into the narrative of
the film as well as the armored car chase sequence with the Joker in The Dark Knight. That being said, the success
of the Batman films has never been due to the action scenes.

Thankfully, I don’t think the film is undone by the issues I
have cited above, just diminished. The real success and enjoyment
of The Dark Knight Rises, as with the
previous two films, comes from the thematic power of its story. I think the
most singular success of the film is its examination of motivation. What
motivates us? What is motivating our heroes and our villains? All of the major
characters (with one exception I'll mention later) are given public motivations (ones known to
the world) as well as private motivations (ones known only to the character). This creates extremely conflicted characters whose true private motivations are masked, from the world and even from themselves at times, by their declared public motivations.

At the beginning of the film we learn that it has been
eight years since the ending of The Dark
Knight, nearly all organized crime has been put to bed, and Gotham is a
peace-time city. If Bruce Wayne was truly motivated to become Batman so
he could intimidate criminals away, inspire common citizens, and deliver justice the courts couldn't,
then he should be a contented and satisfied man right? In reality, Bruce is a
broken man (in a similar way, Gordon is broken as well). With Rachel Dawes dead
and Batman in hiding, Bruce descends into a listless fog of life as his company begins to go bankrupt and his funding of charities takes a dive. Alfred (always well-played
by Michael “She was sixteen years old!” Caine) eventually confronts Bruce, “You’re
not living, you’re waiting”. When Bruce eventually comes back into action as
Batman, others (and Bruce himself) think it’s in order to fight the new crime that’s rising, but the private truth is that this finally offers him a cause to live or possibly a cause to die for. Bruce lacks anything
personal to live for; no future hopes, no future dreams. Batman isn’t the
masked man in his life, it’s Bruce.

You can see this pattern of masked motivations with all the other major characters as well. The
new and powerful villain Bane (Tom Hardy doing his best to pull off a performance while covered with a literal mask) talks a lot about handing
Gotham back to its citizens through anarchic terror, but again, this is another false
public motivation. In fact, the film takes a lot of time and energy to try and convince us that Bane is motivated to install a new political order, taking on many topical real world issues like the 1%, 99% and Occupy Wall Street. We learn that Bane’s actual primary motivation was not a cause, but a personal one: his
love for Talia al Ghul (played by Marion Cotillard). While Bain might have believed in the causes of the League of Shadows, he certainly wasn’t motivated to live
for them; he was motivated to live for Talia. Bane the villain was really a
mask, hiding Bane the protector of his beloved.

Bain's beloved Talia al Ghul wears two
masks in the film as well. Firstly, she disguises herself as Miranda Tate in order to deceive and harm Bruce Wayne. Secondly, she disguises herself in the cause of the League of
Shadows, a cause that seeks to destroy Gotham. Talia and Bane engage in an incredibly unnecessary and painstakingly elaborate plan
to acquire a fusion bomb and fulfill their cause of leveling Gotham. Had this been Talia’s primary
motivation, then the film could certainly have been streamlined and simplified; with Bane's muscle and Talia's money, there are easier ways of acquiring a bomb of that size. However, since her ultimate motivation is for revenge on Batman (who
killed her father in Batman Begins), the elaborate bomb plan she undertakes makes sense because it allows for her to get a more intimate revenge upon Batman. Living
for revenge is difficult, but masking that revenge in a cause is even more
difficult.

The important question for all these characters is,
what are they really living (motivated) for? I think the film judges harshly those characters who
find themselves obsessed on living primarily for a cause; whether that cause is the
destruction of Gotham, revenge on Batman, or even fighting for justice (making the obsession themes of
this film very similar to Nolan’s The
Prestige). For his singular and obsessive focus on fighting crime, Commissioner Gordon is punished in this film with the loss of his beloved family. When Batman reminds
him of how he was the kid Gordon comforted with a coat, it stings because of
how much Gordon has lost along the way. For her inability to shake her obsession with revenge on Batman, Talia al Ghul is punished with a failed plan, the loss of her protector, and the loss of her life. For his obsession over the loss of Rachel Dawes and his inability to move on from his life as a crime fighter, Batman is punished with near death in his first encounter with
Bane (one of my favorite scenes in the entire series, one that nearly brought tears
to my eyes). For his unwavering and protective obsession of Talia, Bane is punished with death and henchman status, a fate almost more terrible than death!

It’s in the Pakistan pit of a prison that Bruce undergoes a real
change, and where I think the titular 'rise' is found. In his encounter with Bane, Bruce was just fighting solely for the cause of justice, unafraid to die for it. If he ended up dying, what was he really losing? It was easy for Bruce to give away his life because there really was nothing to give. It's in the prison (embodied in the lesson of going rope-less to escape) that Bruce is reminded that his most essential fight isn't for a cause,
but that he must fight for LIFE first and foremost. What was he to live for? I think the film implies that it is here, he decides to fight not just for
Gotham, but for a life worth living, a life with Selina, the life wished for by Alfred. This is why he first
finds Selina when he returns to Gotham. Once he is able to fuse this new motivation for life
with his public cause of fighting for justice, we find a newly risen Batman. This is why he is so
willing to forgive Selina (who also goes through a similar rise), and why he is
able to find the strength to defeat the still masked and obsessed Bane and
Talia.

The character of John Blake (played with a grounded integrity by Joseph Gordon-Levitt)is the skeleton key for the morality of the film. Blake is the only major character not to don a mask (materially and
metaphorically), as his primary motivations are laid bare for all to
see, or at least shared by those who need to know. Most importantly though, he is never self-deceived about his quest for justice. Although he doesn't go by his real name (which is Robin) and he certainly hides the pain of his upbringing behind a smile, I think the film presents him as fully conscious of these hurts and motivations; there is no self-deception and moral confliction here. Blake is closer to the
Bruce of Batman Begins and nearly
identical to the upright officer Gordon in the same film. His honest character
and singular drive makes it clear he is living for more than just a cause; he
is pursuing a life worth living. The movie is really about him, or at least what Blake represents. When he enters the bat cave at the end of the film, it is Nolan’s way of saying
that he has finally given us the Batman Gotham truly needs. Blake has one
advantage over Bruce though, he didn't have to face someone like the Joker, he
didn’t have to experience the moral chaos, the moral compromises and choices that The Dark Knight brought to Gordon and Bruce. A bit
needs to be said here about the difference between Bane and the Joker, and how
it affects our protagonists before closing out this review.

One of the common criticisms of The Dark Knight Rises is that Tom Hardy’s Bane isn’t nearly as good
a villain as Ledger’s Joker. I think this is correct, but I think the reason
doesn’t have anything to do with performance, but in how each villain was written by Nolan.
What made Ledger’s Joker so menacing and so vile was that he never seemed to
have any kind of personal motives, he became a literal embodiment of chaos. Everything he did was to support his chaotic ends. He
forced Dent, Gordon and Batman to make hard moral compromises with their beliefs. The Joker didn't do this for love, for money, or for some ideology; he did it purely because he took
pleasure in chaos. There was no backstory for the Joker, except one that seemed
to be altered and changed according to his needs. He could not be explained or
reduced. While Gotham’s heroes ultimately won their clash with
the Joker, they didn’t walk away without physical and moral scars, they walked away changed men.

The key difference between Bane and the Joker lies in our
ability to reduce Bane to a personal motivation. Bane isn’t pure evil, he is a
terrorist out for a cause, he is a protector and sidekick. While one can have
physical scars after encountering Bane, does one leave with a scarred soul? The
story forced Bruce to undergo a change and rise, but did our main villain truly embody something that left its mark on Gotham and its heroes? This is why Bane, although physically
superior to the Joker, is an inferior and less compelling villain. To encounter Bane is to put
your body on the line, but to encounter the Joker was to put your soul on the line.

In the end, The Dark
Knight Rises is an incredibly satisfying ending to the Nolan’s Batman trilogy,
despite its flaws. It is an incredibly mounted and mostly engaging film whose
greatest pleasures lay in what it wants to say about the kind of good man our world needs to rise and stand up to evil . I believe that Nolan is saying
that being willing to lay down your life for a cause isn’t what makes a truly
powerful person (hero or villain). For what
does it mean to give away a life if that life is already dead? No, it is those
who are willing to lay down lives that are worth living, in the cause of good
that find themselves the most powerful heroes on the planet. John Blake is the
film’s finest example of this, and this is why Nolan has him step into the bat
cave at the film’s ending. One can enter into that cave a man of integrity and with noble motivations, but would Blake be able to don his mask without losing sight of what
makes him perfect to wear it? I guess we may never know...

4 comments:

You've mentioned a crucial part of the trilogy. The Joker and Bane are fundamentally two different types of villains. Perhaps moviegoers favor the Joker because of the dichotomy that was created between the role and the previous roles of Heath Ledger. I doubt that people are as familiar with Tom Hardy. I had only previously seen him in Inception, and to be honest, I didn't actually know who Bane's actor was until I looked it up... after I finished watching the movie. As a result, I had a less emotional reaction to Bane in the movie. Instead of constantly wondering WHY the character was doing something, I was simply paying more attention to WHAT the character was doing.

Finally got around to reading this and am amazed at your ability to put all those thoughts into words. I found myself nodding like 'yeah, yeah that's right!' throughout reading it. One of the things that makes Nolan a great director is that he does everything for a reason. Best example is your comparison between Bane and Joker. I think you're 100% right when you say that Bane's character is seen as a lesser villain not due to Hardy's performance but because of how Nolan wrote the characters themselves. I also think that Riley makes a great point about the hype surrounding Ledger's performance as well. I loved the character of John Blake and I think it's like you said, his motivations were there out in the open. I think you raised a very good question. How would his character turn out if he had to fight against someone like the Joker? Ultimately Batman and Gordon won but at what cost? Both of them are so broken at the beginning of the film and they are changed men from the ones you meet in Batman Begins.